“Why, Coyote Bill——” I began.
I stopped suddenly, with a long-drawn gasp, for I had done the very thing I was willing to bet Elam I would not do. Bill started and looked at me closely, and one hand moved to the butt of his revolver. My heart was in my mouth. Coyote Bill’s face was a study, and I was sure my slip of the tongue had hit him in a vital spot. Understand me, I didn’t speak his name knowing what I was doing, but because I couldn’t help myself. The idea that I was to steal that pocket-book at twenty-four hours’ notice was more than I could stand, and I blurted out the first words that came into my mind. I never had had much practice in studying out the different emotions that flit across a person’s mind, but I was sure that in Coyote Bill’s expression both rage and mirth struggled for the mastery—rage, that I had suddenly found out his name since I had left him; and mirth, because I, an unarmed boy, should stand there and call him something which he didn’t like too well anyway. So I resolved to put a bold face on the matter.
“See here, Bill——” was the way I began the conversation.
“Who told you that was my name?” he asked.
“Why, Bill, I have done nothing but hear about you and your doings since I have been here,” I answered. “You certainly do not pretend to say you are not what I represented you to be?”
“Well, that’s neither here nor there,” said he, taking his hand away from his pistol. “You are a brave lad; I will say that much for you, and you ought to be one of us. What’s the reason you can’t steal the pocket-book by to-morrow night?”
I drew a long breath of relief. The worst of the danger was passed, but the recollection of what might be done to me after a while made me shudder. I had half a mind to slip away that very night, but I knew that Elam would scorn such a proposition. He meant to stay and see the thing out. I tell you I wished he stood in my boots, more than once.
“Because Bob is keeping guard over it,” I said. “He don’t know what there is in it, I tell you; but he has been made to understand that there is something in it that concerns himself, and so he is keeping an eye on it.”
“Does he know that he is in danger of losing it?”
“Yes, he does; but he don’t know where the trouble is coming from.”